[MattAMiller]

Naming girls is tough. Girl names tend to come with more baggage than boy's names. So I can understand the trend in names that are just a tough masculine like Madison, Tyler, or Dakota.

I'm quite familiar with the downsides of having a very common name though. There's always another Matt whereever I go. And it's not all together rare to come across another Matt Miller which sometimes results in interesting errors by various companies and government agencies.

It does mean I can use my real name on the Internet and still be fairly anonomous though.

[arthurus]

I'm quite familiar with the downsides of having a common name

People who try so hard to give their children names such that they will not share a classroom with 4 more usually wind up all choosing the same unusual names and when the kids get into school there are 4 more in the classroom with the same name. The best way to give your child a rare name is to choose a name from a non European non Arabic language. There are pitfalls there, too, however: see the Vietnamese Dung and Phuoc, or Hoai Mi.